WWUTT 1226 At the Right Time, Christ Died for the Ungodly? (Romans 5:6-7)

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God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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That is a category of sacrificial love way beyond human love when we understand the text.

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This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Find all our videos online at www .wutt .com, as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in Romans chapter 5.

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And picking up where we left off last week, I'm going to start reading in verse 6. To keep things in context, let's read to the end of the chapter.

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The Apostle Paul wrote to the church that was in Rome. For while we were still weak, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

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But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

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For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.

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More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

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For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

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Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

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But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man

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Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin.

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For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

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For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and therefore the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man

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Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

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For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

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Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Surely you've heard of the doctrine of original sin, that it was in the

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Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve first sinned. Original sin is not sex, that's often the way that it gets talked about, like adultery, having an affair, sex outside of marriage, that that would be the original sin.

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I've seen that many, many times, especially in pop culture, that lust is the original sin. That's not the original sin.

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The original sin, meaning first sin, was that which was committed in the Garden of Eden. And it's here in Romans chapter 5 that we read about that doctrine of original sin, that because of Adam's sin in the

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Garden, everyone who is descended from Adam and Eve have inherited that sin nature, for God cursed all of creation, and therefore we have the same sin nature as Adam, who was cursed because of his rebellion against God.

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When Paul gets to Romans chapter 8 and he mentions that all things were subjected to futility by him who subjected it, talking about how

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God had cursed all of creation, that statement is made in light of the argument that he had unpacked here in Romans chapter 5.

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Now, we're not going to quite get to that section today, but just to mention that when we come to an understanding of that particular doctrine, it's

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Romans 5 that we get that from. Death came into all of creation because of our sin against God.

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Here in Romans 5, starting in verse 6, Paul is setting up that argument where he's going to get to how death came into the world through one man,

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Adam. Life comes into the world through the new

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Adam who is Jesus, the last Adam, as Paul describes him in 1 Corinthians 15.

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So he's setting up, heading there, to talk about original sin, how death came to all men through Adam, but life comes through Jesus Christ.

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So he says here, starting in verse 6, while we were still weak, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. Now, how were we still weak? We were still weak because we could not keep the law and therefore through the law gain righteousness.

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We couldn't do that because all had broken the law, therefore all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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Remember what we had right at the start of Romans chapter 5. We've been justified by faith.

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That's summarizing the argument that had been made previously in chapter 4. And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

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We rejoice even in our sufferings for God is working through our sufferings to do something great and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

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Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. So here Paul is talking about the hope that we have, who is

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Christ. We were weak. We had no hope. We could not hope in ourselves, in our own ability to keep the law because as that argument has already been laid out in Romans, all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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No one does good, not even one person. There is no one righteous, not even one. So we were weak.

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We were powerless to be able to keep the law and gain righteousness.

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The Greek word here for weak is asthenes, and it means to be sick, to be infirmed.

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We were unwell. So as you think of just as weakness being a powerlessness, it's even more deeply seated than that.

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It's that we were without strength at all. We had been suffering from a disease and were laying ill.

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We were without an ability to overcome the sickness that we had, the sickness of sin.

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And while we were still in that state, unable to get to God, unable to even work to attain a righteousness by the law, while we were still in this weakened state, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. In Galatians 4 .4, the Apostle Paul says,

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But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

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And God did this in his own perfect timing. I don't know if you're familiar with the rock opera,

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Jesus Christ Superstar. I wouldn't recommend that you watch it. It's terrible.

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It's extremely blasphemous. You can go watch the what video about it, though. There was a couple of years ago when this rock opera was put on live

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TV. I think it was ABC or NBC that aired it. Anyway, they did a live version of it in which

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John Legend played Jesus, Alice Cooper played Herod.

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He was even in it as well. I can't remember any of the other names. But because that was so popular and many

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Christians were even talking about how great it was on social media, I made a video responding to it so that you can understand through the lyrics how blasphemous this really was.

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What a terrible depiction of Christ this was in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical.

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Tim Rice even straight up saying, no, we don't think Jesus is the Son of God. We just think he was in the right place at the right time.

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So you can go watch the what video about that. Anyway, in this particular rock opera, toward the end, when

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Judas gets the last word, Judas actually has a resurrection scene in Jesus Christ Superstar, but not

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Jesus. And it just gives you an idea of how blasphemous it is. So Judas gets the last word at the end of the rock opera.

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And there's at one point where he says, why did you send your son, you know, he's kind of pointing the finger at God, just talking about how terrible a plan this was to send

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Jesus to die on the cross. He said, why did you do this in the first century?

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You sent your son in the first century. Why didn't you send him now when there could have been mass communication?

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So doesn't it make more sense to send Jesus in the 21st century when we have this mass communication and then the message of Jesus would have gone out to even more people in the world?

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Why not do it then? But God's timing is absolutely perfect.

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And we cannot even fathom the ways that God is working to accomplish his perfect will.

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Isaiah 55 says, my ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.

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When you read the salvation story, the whole Messiah narrative in the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, you see

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God working and bringing things about in his own perfect timing. It was absolutely perfect for Jesus to die on exactly the day that he died on Friday before the

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Sabbath, that he may be the Passover lamb. He was sacrificed during Passover.

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He's fulfilling everything that was pointing to Christ being our Passover lamb. He's in a tomb all through the

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Sabbath, Saturday. He rises again on Sunday morning, which we refer to now as the Lord's day.

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All of these things that took place, all of these pieces that were put together, it all happened in God's perfect timing.

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And the more you study and look into the different intricate pieces regarding Christ's life, death and resurrection, the more mind blowing it is.

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Jesus even opens the minds of his disciples to understand how all the scriptures were pointing to him in Luke chapter 24.

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And their minds are blown by the whole thing. They don't even understand it until Jesus, by his

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Holy Spirit, helps them to understand it. So it's at the right time that Christ died for the ungodly and all the world does know about the gospel.

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The gospel of Christ is still going out into the world. You know, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, they can make this jab at Christianity and say, wouldn't it make more sense for God to have sent

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Jesus during the 20th or 21st century so that through mass communication, this message could get out to more people.

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But why is it that people are watching Jesus Christ Superstar? Because they already know the story of Jesus.

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They're just deciding to take in a narrative that was crafted by some other writer other than what we read in the

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Bible. They want to be entertained by something. So they watch the Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

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But Rice and Webber had to know the story of Jesus before they could parody and blaspheme the story of Jesus.

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So it's a total sham on their own argument. Furthermore, there are people in the world who don't have technology.

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So we've got to have another way to reach people other than mass communication. Mass communication is what man came up with.

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And sure, God uses it to be able to advance the gospel. You're listening to Bible teaching through through media.

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It's a wonderful thing to have this technology, to be able to use this, to share the gospel.

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And I even hear stories about people coming up with putting Bible teaching on MP3 players and stuff like that.

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And they're taking it out to other places. I was even reading one story about how somebody had come up with a solar powered

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MP3 player that they're taking these solar powered MP3 players with earphones and all this to parts of the world that wouldn't ordinarily have access to this kind of technology.

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And you have hours and hours and hours of sermons on these little MP3 players that are powered by sunlight, not by batteries, and giving them to people in more desolate regions that don't have

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Internet access and things like that. What a great thing. What a great ability to take technology and be able to share the gospel in this way.

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That's certainly wonderful. But there are still people all throughout the world who don't have access to those things.

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God has certainly used those ways that man has come up with spreading information to share his gospel.

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But for the last 2000 years, the number one way that the gospel has reached to people is through a preacher.

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And Paul is even going to talk about that when we get to Romans chapter 10. How will they know unless someone goes to them and shares the gospel with them?

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We've already read in Romans chapter three, no one's seeking for God. It is

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Christ who seeks after us. And so through the message of the gospel that was appointed to a disciple of Christ to take it to the world, we have heard the good news that Christ has died for sinners and all who believe in him are forgiven and have everlasting life.

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It is God who has ordained the ways that that gospel is going to go out into the world.

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And God's ordination is going to be greater than anything that man comes up with and man invents.

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Right. So at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly and not one of those persons whom

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God has elected for salvation is ever going to be lost. So it doesn't matter whether we are talking about sharing the gospel in an information technological age or not.

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God has ordained who he is going to save and he has brought about the way that they will be saved through the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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God has done this. It's all to the praise of his glorious grace. It's not to the praise of man and his ability or even anything that he has invented at the right time.

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Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person,

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Paul says in verse seven, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die.

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The point that Paul is making here is that every once in a while you're going to hear stories about someone who gives their life for somebody else.

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And surely you can think of some, you know, you've probably heard stories of a doctor who risked his life for a patient or a soldier who gave his life to protect his fellow soldiers or to protect civilians.

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You'll hear about a police officer laying down their life for somebody else or a firefighter running into a burning building, risking their life to save someone else and probably even dying in the process.

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Or you'll hear whenever there's a mass shooting, you might hear a story of somebody who put their body in harm's way to save somebody else.

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Maybe they took a bullet and died for somebody else. You might hear a story like that. So we hear these stories occasionally, stories of people who give their lives for other people.

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But when a person gives their life for another person, they think that that person is good.

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They're giving their life for another good person. In the case of what Jesus did for us, the love of Christ, the love of God that is demonstrated in his son is in a whole other category than human love.

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People die for people, but they think of people as being generally good people. But when

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Christ dies for us, he died for a people that are radically depraved.

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We had rebelled against God. And you look at the way that Jesus died. He allowed himself to be killed by the people who had rebelled against him, his own creation, his own creation killed him.

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But he did this as an act of love to save those who were otherwise rebellious against God.

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Everyone who puts faith in Jesus Christ is forgiven their sins and has everlasting life.

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This is this is a level of rebellion and treason that cannot be paralleled in anything else that we see in in human existence.

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Our rebellion against God is the greatest rebellion that will ever be in the entire cosmos.

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It's it's astounding the level of rebellion that this is. And yet, despite the fact that we had so sinned against God, he gave us his son out of love.

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He gave his son for us, that Jesus would die for us. So, again, this this love of God is in a completely different category than human love.

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Humans may give their lives on behalf of other humans, a soldier going overseas and fighting in a war to protect people he's never even met, you know, to defend the rights and causes of of people that he doesn't even know.

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So we see that in the world. We've heard that in stories all throughout human history.

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But the kind of life that Jesus gave, the kind of death that he died is in a totally different category of sacrificial love.

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God shows his love for us. Verse eight, in that while we were still sinners, while we were still rebelling against him,

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Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?

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More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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We're saved by the death of Christ, his shed blood on the cross. We've been justified by his blood.

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We're also being saved by his life because we share in the life that he lived.

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And so we are sanctified. We're being made holy and we are also reconciled. So there's kind of three phases to this that Paul is talking about.

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And not not necessarily three phases, but three things being accomplished by the life and death of Christ.

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We're justified by his death. We're sanctified by his life. We are reconciled to God through all of the work of Christ.

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And we'll continue to talk about that tomorrow as we continue studying in this particular section of Romans chapter five.

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But what a great demonstration of love has been shown for us in the death of Christ on the cross for our sins.

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There is no greater act of love in all of cosmic history than you will see in the cross of Christ.

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God shows his love for us in this. That while we were still sinning against him,

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Christ died for us, let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your son who died on the cross for our that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life as we see mankind fighting with each other.

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And we see all kinds of evil and turmoil and skirmishes and conflicts and and disruptions and divisions and everything that is going on as man fights with man.

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The only peace that will ever be between mankind is going to be through the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it's through the gospel of Christ.

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We have peace with God. Which was the greatest division, that was the greatest unrest that existed, our enmity with God, and yet we've been reconciled to God through the blood of Christ.

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So therefore, what can possibly bring peace to unpeaceful man? Well, it's the gospel of Christ.

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So may we cling to this hope and peace and take it to others that they may stop fighting against God and fighting against one another and understand that the true peace of God is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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These things we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, WWUTT .com,

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and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our

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Bible study, When We Understand the Text. Good.